“SHE’S FAST ENOUGH FOR YOU, OLD MAN.” A shift of gears and a timely change of approach along with an update, a rant, a ponderance.

Cross-posted from AOAIBetrayeds.
r/AOAIBetrayeds is an online peer support group and safe space reserved for betrayed individuals who are considering, actively attempting to, or have reconciled after infidelity. If you feel you would benefit from a more private supportive sub for only betrayed people, message the mods at r/AOAIBetrayeds or send me a DM.

It's been 2 months since I posted an update so I think it is time.

Context: Me: 59m.  Her: 55f.  Married 33 years, together 36.
WW had a full on EA bookended with multiple sexual PA's (1 in Dec, 2022 and 3 in Sept, 2023 (last 2 on Dday). She then pretended to go NC with AP for an additional 5 months which created Dday #2 in February.
Read my story and updates using my profile for posts if you want to see background.

https://www.reddit.com/user/Discardbobulated/submitted/

NO ADVICE PLEASE: Just like last time I posted, and the time before that, I am processing all of this stuff, and working with my therapist and my support group closely, so I will ask for advice only when I think I need it and when I think I am ready to receive it. Right now, I just thought I’d post an update for those who might be following along or anyone for whom my story resonates. I hope you’re OK.

I can use reassurance. I have asked for no advice because I am all full-up with advice that I am taking and utilizing. More and/or different advice will potentially muddy my process and have my approach blurred. Reassurance though? Bring it on. We all need it. Sometimes directly and sometimes just by being here and reading the stories of others. Reassure me.

As many of you know, I was dealt a huge blow the day after Valentine’s Day. That’s 3 months ago today for those of you keeping track. My wife, with whom I was 5.5 months into ‘reconciliation’ with, came clean and told me that she was still in contact with her AP for the entirety of that span of time.

The revelation of The Big Lie as I refer to it now, even with my wife, was in incredibly damaging hit to the idea of reconciliation. It was as shattering, if not MORE shattering as the original affair revelation. Big lies, little lies, untruths, the masking of truth, the omission of truth…all are devastating to the traumatized betrayed. If you know anything of the effects of trauma (as most of you do I am sure), you know that each lie usually triggers a trauma response, and each trauma response piles into a vast storage area in your brain where it pools and stays ready to fuck you up every time it’s poked. And mine was poked A LOT in the last 3 months. A LOT.

I started the ‘last 3 months’ phase of this journey with this huge setback that was The Big Lie. It reset our progress to zero in some cases. If you look at some things, like my ability to control the PTSD events, then that progress was still in effect. (I was still able to recognize the PTSD event coming on and sometimes get control of it before spiraling out of control).  If you look at the timeline of physical sexual events, that didn’t change. If you take into account all the books and articles read, all the podcasts and audiobooks listened to, and all the hours spend by me in IC, then then those items were (mostly) still intact.

But you know what was now absolutely fucking GONE?

~T R U S T~

I had spent that first 5.5 months learning to trust again as we were working our way through reconciliation. You can look back at my post history prior to February, 2024 and see a solid progression of trust being built, of confidence being regained, and of affection, sexuality, appreciation, and friendship being rebuilt.

ALL of that was 100% GONE in ONE moment. GONE.

LIES are destructive. Secondary Dday lies like this one are DEEPLY destructive.

Trust is often cited as the most important ingredient in a personal relationship. How can we even begin to consider something as gigantic as a marriage reconciliation when trust has been completely blown up?  I don’t have an answer to that. I am looking for it.

You know what was also lost at the point of the revelation of The Big Lie?

Hope. Optimism. Self-esteem. Admiration. Lust. Attraction. Affection.
All gone.

My feelings of these things were returning in slivers over those 5.5 months after Dday and now they were just GONE.

Replacing these feelings were different feelings I had. Now I was feeling:
Helpless. Worthless. Inadequate. Unloved. Betrayed. Devastated. Like a Chump. Belittled. Emasculated. Unworthy. Ugly. Undesirable …and incredibly MANIPULATED.

She had spent this time manipulating me into complacency while she continued to carry on her affair in the form of regular communication with ‘her friend’ AP. They talked on the phone regularly, texted regularly. All the while she was putting forth what I THOUGHT was EFFORT into our reconciliation, but was really just a collection of actions that were meant to placate me.

The Fake R time, as I now know it, included:
I love you’s. Hand holding. Sex. Apologies. Forward thinking. Plans.
I was feeling like PROGRESS was happening. I was still experiencing the PTSD events. Still having times when I would lash out in anger at her for what she had done, but those awful things were decreasing in intensity and frequency and I was thankful for that.

I was able to see what reconciliation looks like.

Only I wasn’t. It was all a sham.
Now that she is not in contact with him (I hope and believe), she has stopped the hand holding (mostly). Not one ‘I love you’ in the past 3 months. The hugs I used to get now feel like the hugs you’d give a kid with a scraped knee. The feeling of being wanted and being on a path to something better has been obliterated. And sex? 2-3 times a week during the Fake R has become 1 time in the last 3 months.

So now, after the revelation of The Big Lie I am left with a VERY odd feeling. A feeling like what I WANT BACK is the pre-Big-Lie actions. The ‘I Love You’s’, the hand holding, the sex…

But since I now know these as things that were done to manipulate me, I really DON’T want them back. What I want is something that I have not yet seen: An honest reconciliation and the actions that come with that. And now that my mind has suffered the mind-fuck rollercoaster of the last 8 months, I don’t even know what honest reconciliation looks like. My perception is fucked up. I no longer can think accurately about this stuff because of the gaslighting. It’s hard to even describe the feeling of disconnection with my own reality.

A METAMORPHOSIS
The changes in how she was treating me now that she no longer has AP in her back pocket as a ‘friend’ to talk to are stark. She has expressed that the sex was just to placate me. That she can’t feel good about US anymore because she doesn’t have knowledge of how HE is doing anymore. She cannot “live her good life” with me because she doesn’t know if HE is able to “have a good life”. She is NO CONTACT with him, but clearly some of her still has a connection to him. That hurts.

During these last 3 months I have gone from non-functioning to confused to (almost) accepting. Along the way I have passed ANGRY, DEVASTATED, DEFEATED, and a hundred other negative emotions.

I also spent nearly all of my time doing what ALL us betrayeds do. I tried to get her to UNDERSTAND MY PAIN. I wanted her to really know what she has done to me. Not just what she did with the affair, but with the aftermath of the affair and the 5.5 months that I was trying to regain trust in her and she was faking R with me so that she could continue her EA with HIM. I was CONSTANTLY wanting her to HURT because I thought that if she could HURT like I HURT then she could understand my pain and come to really know what it is she has done. And if she could get to THAT place, then surely she would finally find the shame and guilt that I think she deserves to bear.

The problem is that even with all my effort to explain to her in words, in mental breakdowns, in PTSD trauma events, in triggers, sadness, crying and constant malaise, nothing was changing.

She wasn’t displaying any of the remorse, guilt and shame that I want from her. She wasn’t giving me any of the actions or words she was giving me during Fake R. She wasn’t holding my hand. She wasn’t saying I love you. She wasn’t touching me or having sex with me. She was just enduring my wrath.

During the last time that I sat with her and had a Q&A about how she could do this and all the same questions that I have asked before and my saying again how hurt I was and how it was ALL HER FAULT and how I thought she should feel SHAME I ended up feeling a little tranquil. I felt like maybe I had told her enough times. I didn’t know if she fully understood like I wanted her to but I thought that we were at a place where MORE of this was going to do NOTHING. After all, almost 3 months of it hadn’t YET produced anything, why would MORE have any potential for positive progress.

So I had a thought.
What if I just treated her nicely?
What if I stopped with the finger wagging and the name calling and the ‘why me’s’ and the angry lashing out. What if I instead tried to hold HER hand occasionally? What if I just WASN’T adversarial? Could that help? Could that get her to see me differently? Could that get ME to see me differently? Could that reset my mind and get me out of the victim moment and into some undefined type of recovery?

I wondered to myself if I had it in myself to let those things go. I wondered if I was CAPABLE of not being so fucking angry at her for what she had done. I mean, we both are clearly aware of what she has done and what it has caused in me, so I don’t have to restate that over and over and over again, DO I?

I took this question with me to IC.

IC reframed it in a way that resonated with me somehow. She said:
“Look, you’ve spent a lot of time ‘spinning’, trying to make heads or tails of your predicament. Trying to get her to love you again. Trying to find connection with her. Why? Because you love her. Isn’t that the entire point? If you want to reconcile with her the end goal is for you to love one another again because you love her, right?”
She said:
“Why don’t you try showing her your true self? The self that loves her. The self that wants reconciliation because you love her.
Maybe start with small things? Don’t go crazy and drive yourself nuts with a huge reversal from anger and hurt to loving and wonderful. Instead just don’t hurl negativity all the time. Relax instead. Act like reconciliation is under way in order to see if that action can initiate a real reaction.”

In other words, release the Restraining Bolt that keeps you in the stew of anger and contempt and head off to find a crazy old wizard and your path to freedom from the tyranny of self-pity.

Interesting.

This made SOME sense to me, and partly made sense to me because of the way I was FEELING. It would NOT have made sense to me 2 months ago, or even a week ago. It makes sense to me because of where I am NOW.
A shift in gears from the anger and hatred to something more nurturing. Not a full tack. More of a subtle lane change. (sorry to mix my motoring and sailing metaphors).

So this is where I am now. I made the decision in my head to move over into this other lane. I did this less than 36 hours ago. I have not yet determined if this has been beneficial or not. I feel anxious. Of course I didn’t NOT feel anxious in that other lane, so this is a wash. I have not yet experienced any super-positive changes to my own attitude. I have no idea if she has even noticed. I hope she has and I intend to ask her if she has when we go see our marriage counselor today.

T I M E

My support group has told me that time is my friend. That only time will allow my wife to recognize that she truly is the villain in her own story. To have her really understand that SHE is the cause of all of this. For her to recognize also that her AP is not the needy ‘good guy’ that weaseled his way into her psyche, but the manipulative fuck that we all know he is. TIME.
Time also for me to be able to release the anger like I have been attempting to do over the last couple days. Time for me to ponder how I can find my own self esteem again and really shed my feelings of inadequacy and ugliness (among others). Time for WW and I to possibly find some bonding time and make some memories that are not anger and sorrow and self pity and….

“She’s fast enough for you, old man.”
I guess she is. That’s what they tell me.
Essentially the theme of this slow-burn reconciliation thing. That if she is showing ANY progress, then that is the progress that we as betrayeds need to embrace. ANYTHING is “fast enough” because you cannot speed this process up. You will never do the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs. Not gonna happen. 1-5 years is what they say reconciliation takes for it to be complete if it makes it to complete. I have told myself to give it at least 3. My hope is that I will feel a shift from tentative to optimism at some point along the way and that will give my brain the jump to light speed that it needs for me to relax and feel safe again.

This ‘update’ doesn’t predict a future. I have no preconceived ideas about how this might pan out. I just thought that an update could be beneficial.

Beneficial to ME in my selfish need for some validation of where I am and what I’m going through. For ME to be able to try to get it all on ‘paper’ so that I can help myself try to understand where I am. For ME to see a progression, no matter how up-and-down it has been.

Beneficial for OTHERS who may have a story like mine or PARTIALLY like mine who will be able to see themselves in this writing and be able to feel less alone. Beneficial maybe to all of us who might have a Bad Motivator.

Thanks for reading, my fucked up comrades. Sorry you are here in this sub. It’s a truly shitty place to need to be. I appreciate all of you. Without this sub and the people in it I think I might literally not be around. Here’s to you and your futures. May you find some peace.

Fuck these affairs.